“To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women in the future, a Nation must believe in three things.
It must believe in the past.
It must believe in the future.
It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgement in creating their own future.”
– Franklin Roosevelt At the dedication of his library on June 30, 1941
Earlier this month it was announced the President Barack Obama’s Presidential Library will be built on the south side of Chicago. It will be our 14th Presidential Library.
The idea originated with FDR who in his second term “on the advice of noted historians and scholars, established a public repository to preserve the evidence of the Presidency for future generations”
Then in 1955, Congress passed the Presidential Libraries Act, establishing a system of privately erected and federally maintained libraries.
Here’s a sampling of images from the Digital Public Library of America related to our presidents and their libraries.
Enjoy!
FDR laying the cornerstone of his presidential library
Herbert Hoover Presidential Library. West Branch, Iowa.
Jimmy Carter Library and Museum
Presidential Room at The Eisenhower Presidential Library
Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Site – model, 1971 Photo by Julius Schulman
Inside the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library
Former President Gerald R. Ford and his Cabinet officers at the dedication of the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 27-28, 1981.
Mourners pay their final respects to former US President Ronald Reagan as his body lay in repose inside a flag draped coffin at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Top image: JFK Library and Museum
This post originally appeared on the blog of the DPLA